Feiertage usw (Holidays etc.)

So.  I managed to not blog for the entire month of December.  Oops.  So let’s start from where we left off:

November 18 – 20^th Fulbright Conference on Academic Exchange with William:

Anecdote #1: One of the women at the conference shared her experience teaching an intensive summer German course to beginning level German students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne.  During her presentation she shared some journal entries from the students (with the names changed of course).  One of these students was renamed Christian, and Christian often preferred to journal in his rather elementary level German, and use said German to encourage himself…

Example: Du kannst es machen, Christian! Ja, Christian!!! Translation: You can make it, Christian!  Yes, Christian!!!

Note: (pronounced Chris-ti-ahn)

In short, “Ja, Christian!!” has entered into the common vernacular of William and I.  Anytime something seems particularly triumphant or ridiculous one must simply cry, “Ja, Christian!” to display one’s own appreciation for this triumphant ridiculousness…use it well.

Other than this amazing development, the conference was a conference…but I did get to tour around all the Christmas markets in Vienna with William and his friend Andi.  

Anecdote #2: William did his study abroad in Vienna three years ago and so some of his best friends live there.  Which was really rather convenient, since I got to stay with them for free (thanks Christian and Michy!)  Also, it meant being invited by proxy to one of his friend’s birthday parties.  Here’s the scene: basically all of William’s Viennese friends are late 20’s or 30 something year old extremely attractive gay men.  So the entire party was said demographic.  It was in the most enormous apartment I’ve ever been in with really high ceilings and HUGE furniture (seriously, the couch was like 3 times the size of a normal couch).  And there was an accordion player and this weird 16 year old kid who was wandering around taking photos.  And there was fancy food and fancy drinks.  Of a party of like 40 people I was one of three women.  It was quite a new experience for me, and strange, because at most parties men talk to you because they want to hit on you, and there was no chance of that.  I almost felt bad taking up anyone’s time when they could be using the time flirting with someone else.  It made me wonder if gay people feel like this all the time…

 

November 20^th: Back in Linz, I attended a brunch movie (15 euros, brunch + movie :-) with the Mädels.  We saw The Kids Are All Right, in English, which was great.  Also, my friend Eva brought me some Mozartkugel because I had told her I’d never had them before.  These are chocolate spheres filled with marzipan and are a specialty in Austria (specifically Salzburg) and rather delicious.  See picture.

Anecdote:  I started babysitting for a family in Leonding, about 10 km out of Linz.  The mom is called Natascha and she has 2 year old Henri and 5 month old Clara.  This has been one of the most stressful experiences ever. I thought I was good at babysitting…but Henri is definitely in his “I-only-like-mom” phase and it is such a struggle.  Also, he doesn’t speak English.  He also doesn’t speak the High German that I have been learning for the last 6 years of my life.  Oh no, little Henri speaks only Upper Austrian Dialect (of course, since he hasn’t yet been to school).  This makes our communication rather interesting. His mom wants me to speak to him in English.  So here’s the idea: 

“Henri, do you want to go outside now?”  

Staring…no response.  

“Henri…sollen wir jetzt drausen gehen?” 

“Schon dialect dialect dialect”*

I stare.  “Yes or no?  Ja oder nein?”

And so on and so forth.  Basically he understands my German, but I don’t understand his.  It’s interesting.

*apparently “schon” is a dialect way of saying “ja”…who knew?

Thanksgiving:  One of my teachers, Ernst (the older one), invited William and I out to his house for Thanksgiving.  He lives in the mountains outside of Amstetten and it was a lovely day.  We went hiking and sledding and had a Thanksgiving dinner of roast wild pig.  After the dinner, we went out to another small town called Gaming to watch the Perchtenlauf, or the Parade of the Perchten (also called Krampus)!  See wiki excerpt below:

Krampus is a mythical creature recognized in alpine countries^[1]. According to legend, Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children.

In the Alpine regions, Krampus is represented by a demon-like creature. Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in Austria during the first two weeks of December, particularly on the evening of 5 December, and roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells.^[2]

We had a very interesting time seeing the Perchten, they had a very Vulcan-like vibe (for those of you Minnesotans ;-) considering they were into running around and tackling women.  Check out John Colbert’s take below:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258162/december-09-2009/the-blitzkrieg-on-grinchitude---hallmark---krampus

Pictures from the Perchtenlauf:

Dec 10: Went out to Braunau with Tasha and spent a wonderful evening at Becca’s (another TA) house.  She got lucky: one of the teachers at the school where she works is doing a teaching exchange and so Becca gets to stay in the teacher’s house for really cheap rent while she’s gone.  So it was an entire house, a fully equipped kitchen, and came with 2 cats.  I have been so cat-starved it’s ridiculous, so I was very happy about that.  The cats are named Blacky and Amadeus* and I spent lots of time talking for them and making up songs about them.  It reminded me of home.

*they really love Mozart here

Fact: Speaking of cats, my dad has been sending me a picture a day of my cat for the whole month of December as a Christmas gift. They also come with cat facts and cat quotes, one of the most recent examples below:

Cat Fact # 25:  A domestic cat can sprint at about 31 miles per hour.

Cat Saying #25:  "When rats infest the Palace a lame cat is better than the swiftest horse." - Chinese Proverb

 

Fact: Sent Christmas gifts on Dec 3^rd and they still haven’t arrived :-(

Fact: Started tutoring two awesome kids ages 13 and 15.  I go to their house on Thursdays and basically just play Jenga with them, only requirement is we have to speak English.  Last week we ate cookies and built block towers for an hour and a half.  I get paid 20 euros an hour for this :-)

Dec 17: TA Christmas party! 

Anecdote: We played white elephant (rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange) at the TA Christmas party.  Someone brought a super cute egg cup:

Which William received and was extremely stoked about.  He kept gazing at it admiringly and playing with it, and probably threw in a couple “Ja Christian!”s.  At the very end of the game, Joseph stole it from him.  The rest of the evening was peppered with taunts like, “Guess I know what I’m eating for breakfast tomorrow” and “I’ve named him Eddie, look how much he likes me.”  William was very downtrodden.  This was an extremely Joseph move and he loved every minute of it, lol.

Christmas:  Merry Belated Christmas everyone!  I spent Christmas dinner with Ross’ family.  Not my ordinary Christmas day, but really rather entertaining.  We had duck and potatoes and veggies and it was delicious.  Then we started playing all sorts of classic rock songs on youtube/ Ross on his newly purchased guitar and basically had a karaoke session for hours.  We were all a bit tipsy off wine, I think.  Ross’ parents are wonderful individuals and also took me out to eat and to Hinterstoder for snowboarding.  Needless to say I especially enjoyed Ross’ dad’s accent (he actually says “me” instead of “my”… “Where’s me jacket?  I left the keys in me pocket!”….apparently this is a northern thing).  Hopefully I can get some of the photos Ross' dad took while were snowboarding...

Fact: Been helping this guy with his master’s thesis.  He has to write in English, so that’s fine…but it’s also a thesis in mathematics…it’s been a bit of a struggle.

Dec 29: A friend of mine from my tandem group, Ingrid, invited me out to her house for lunch.  She lives in Kematen an der Krems, about a half hour from Linz by train.  It was really nice to spend all afternoon speaking German and she served me some sort of Austrian fish with pumpkin risotto.  We then went shopping/wandering around the city of Wels which is about halfway between Kematen an der Krems and Linz.  Ingrid actually was an au pair in Pennsylvania 10 years ago, and so she was very nostalgic for the states and we discussed cheddar cheese and Coke and American English and it was a really nice afternoon.

New Year’s Eve:  Tasha came in from Freistatt for New Year’s Eve, and we went to H & M to buy some outrageously blingy jewelry and clothing for the evening.  William’s boyfriend, Mason, and Evan’s family were all visiting from the states, so William, Mason, Evan and Evan’s brother all came over to celebrate.  Of course they didn’t come until 10:00 or so, by which point Tasha and I were pretty far gone.  It was excellent, we watched fireworks from my window, drank champagne, and had a late night durum run.

Next on the agenda:  Jan 3 – 7 Tasha and I will be exploring Venice and I am so excited!